Today's classroom presents a wealth of opportunities for social interaction amongst pupils, leading to increased interest in teachers and researchers into the social nature of learning. While classroom interaction can be a valuable tool for learning, it does not necessarily lead to useful learning experiences. Through case studies, this book highlights the use of new analytical methodologies for studying the content and patterns of children's interactions and how these contribute to their construction of knowledge. Classroom Interaction and Social Learning will be of interest to students and in service teachers and researchers concerned with classroom discourse and learning.

Offering an interdisciplinary approach, The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction presents a series of contributions written by educators and applied linguists that explores the latest research methodologies and theories related to classroom language. • Organized to facilitate a critical understanding of how and why various research traditions differ and how they overlap theoretically and methodologically • Discusses key issues in the future development of research in critical areas of education and applied linguistics • Provides empirically-based analysis of classroom talk to illustrate theoretical claims and methodologies • Includes multimodal transcripts, an emerging trend in education and applied linguistics, particularly in conversation analysis and sociocultural theory

This book offers a close investigation of interactional practices in L2 classrooms. With an emphasis on the multimodal and multilingual resources, this is an essential study for researchers and postgraduate students in TESOL and Applied Linguistics.

Classroom interaction has a significant influence on teaching and learning. It is through interaction that we solve problems, build ideas, make connections and develop our understanding. Patterns in Mathematics Classroom Interaction describes, exemplifies and considers the implications of patterns and structures of mathematics classroom interaction. Drawing on a Conversation Analytic approach, the book examines how the structures of interactions between teachers and students influence, enable, and constrain the mathematics that students are experiencing and learning in school. In particular, it considers the handling of difficulties or errors and the consequences on both the mathematics students are learning, and the learning of this mathematics. The various roles of silence and the treatment of knowledge and understanding within everyday classroom interactions also reveal the nature of mathematics as it is taught in different classrooms. Examples of students explaining, reasoning and justifying as they interact are also drawn upon to examine how the structures of classroom interaction support students to develop these discursive practices. The approach taken in Patterns in Mathematics Classroom Interaction enables the identification of not only what structures exist and pervade classroom discourse, but also how these structures influence teaching and learning. It is the understanding of how these structures affect students' experiences in the classroom that permits the use and development of practices that can support students' learning. This reflexive relationship between these structures of interactions and student actions and learning is central to the issues explored in this book, alongside the implications these may have for teachers' practice, and students' learning.

This volume brings together the current theoretical interest in reconceptualizing second and foreign language learning from a sociocultural perspective on language and learning, with practical concerns about second and foreign language pedagogy. It presents a set of studies whose focus is on the empirical description of particular practices constructed in classroom interaction that promote the learning of a second or foreign language. The authors examine in detail the processes by which the learning of additional languages is accomplished in the interaction of a variety of classrooms and in a variety of languages. Not only will the findings from the studies reported in this volume help to lay a foundation for the development of a more expansive, sociocultural model of second and foreign language learning, but on a more practical level they will help language educators in creating a set of principles for identifying and sustaining classroom interactional practices that foster additional language development. The volume is distinguished in three ways: * Following a Vygotskyan perspective on development, the studies assume that language learning is a fundamentally pragmatic enterprise, intrinsically linked to language use. This breaks from a more traditional understanding of second and foreign language learning, which has viewed learning and use as two distinct phenomena. The importance of classroom interaction to additional language development is foregrounded. * The investigations reported in this book are distinguished by their methodological approach. Because language learning is assumed to be a situated, context-sensitive, and dynamic process, the studies do not rely on traditional experimental methods for collecting and analyzing data, but rather, they involve primarily the use of ethnographic and discourse analytic methods. * The studies focus on interactional practices that promote second and foreign language learning. Although a great deal of research has examined first language learning in classrooms from a sociocultural perspective, little has looked at second and foreign language classrooms from such a perspective. Thus there is a strong need for this volume of studies addressing this area of research. Researchers, teacher educators, and graduate students across the fields of second and foreign language learning, applied linguistics, and language education will find this book informative and relevant. Because of the programmatic implications arising from the studies, it will also appeal to teacher educators and teachers of second and foreign languages from the elementary to the university levels.

Educational Psychology Series: Gender Influences in Classroom Interaction compiles papers presented at a conference funded by the National Institute of Education and held at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin—Madison in October 1983. This book focuses on the interactional influences that may be related to differential classroom experiences for females and males. A diversity of issues that have a bearing on gender-related influences, such as contextual factors and teacher and student characteristics, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives are also deliberated. This compilation is addressed primarily to researchers, but is also useful to teachers, educational policy makers, and others who want to insure every child, regardless of gender or other status, the opportunity of a rewarding and challenging education.

This volume represents the first collection of empirical studies focusing on peer interaction for L2 learning. These studies aim to unveil the impact of mediating variables such as task type, mode of interaction, and social relationships on learners’ interactional behaviors and language development in this unique and pedagogically powerful learning context. To examine these issues, contributors employed quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods designs as well as cognitive, social, and sociocognitive theoretical frameworks. The majority of the studies are classroom based and were conducted in a rich array of settings covering five continents and encompassing a wide range of learner L1s and target languages. These settings include second and foreign language classrooms from primary to university level, content-based programs, online contexts, and after-school programs. To span the divide between research and practice, each study includes a section suggesting pedagogical implications.

Languages: English with extended summary in Spanish, Spanish with extended summary in English The works included in this volume offer a comprehensive approach to the updating of theories, methodological innovation and empirical application in relation to the most central problems in the educational process, in three sections: adult-child interaction in family and experimental contexts; teacher-pupil interaction in the school context; and learning and development in peer interaction. This volume is a clear exponent of the vigour of the sociocultural approach, from which it emphasises the cultural, social and communicative nature of learning, development and the construction of knowledge. Idiomas: Inglés, con resumen extenso en español, Español con resumen extenso en inglés Los trabajos recogidos en este volumen ofrecen un equilibrado compendio de actualización teórica, innovación metodológica y aplicación empírica a los problemas más centrales del proceso educativo agrupadas en tres secciones: La interacción adulto-niño en contextos familiares y experimentales, la interacción maestro-alumno en el contexto escolar, y el aprendizaje y el desarrollo en la interacción entre iguales. Este volumen es un claro exponente de la pujanza de la aproximación sociocultural, desde la que se enfatiza el carácter cultural, social y comunicativo del aprendizaje, el desarrollo y la construcción del conocimiento.

Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning synthesizes the existing body of research on the role of peer interaction in second language learning in one comprehensive volume. In spite of the many hours that language learners spend interacting with peers in the classroom, there is a tendency to evaluate the usefulness of this time by comparison to whole class interaction with the teacher. Yet teachers are teachers and peers are peers – as partners in interaction, they are likely to offer very different kinds of learning opportunities. This book encourages researchers and instructors alike to take a new look at the potential of peer interaction to foster second language development. Acknowledging the context of peer interaction as highly dynamic and complex, the book considers the strengths and limitations of peer work from a range of theoretical perspectives. In doing so, Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning clarifies features of effective peer interaction for second language learning across a range of educational contexts, age spans, proficiency levels, and classroom tasks and settings.